alt Hacker NewsThe Permanent Upper Crow
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I wasn't expecting this to get the visibility it did... but I want to say thank you to everyone that took a few minutes of their precious time to play through this.
I made this on a whim yesterday. It's inspired by many of my experiences talking to folks in the AI space. While it paints a grim picture, I still have hope that we'll find a way out of this mess in the future.
I also want to give some recognition for the visual inspirations here. The characters are inspired by one of my favorite indie games: Death's Door. I played this in Seoul a few years ago and ended up not sleeping the entire night just to play it. It's very affordable (even for undercrows), and will probably inspire many more of my future works. Not getting paid to say this - I simply think birds are cool.
Remember - if you keep grinding, you might just be able to don that top hat...
Cheers loves!
If crypto was a bunch of autodidacts speed running the history of finance, then AI is speed running the history of religion. This whole "permanent underclass" thing seems like it's just the Rapture in secular clothing.
It's interesting watching each new generation relate to the rat race, but this current framing seems toxic. The economy is not a zero sum game. I worry about the amount people coming into the work force now thinking that unless they acquire generational wealth by 30 then they've wasted their life. That's a recipe for unhappiness.
Save money. Skip the top hat.
Fascinating. I was able to escape the suffering by simply not purchasing a top hat. An interesting lesson that the pursuit of conspicuous consumption is the root of one’s own suffering.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
In case you're wondering, there are 106 CEOs / companies, and at 107 it just loops around.
I feel like I'm missing something here. Was this supposed to be a game? I just kept clicking and reading and clicking and reading. I finally gave up. If the goal is to tell a non-interactive story, I'd rather just scroll...
How does it come up with the CEO and business' name? I assume there's gotta be finite number and the game has to end (?) Anyways, sick game.
CAWn't believe how hard this hits
Of course ai execs are going to say AI will automate every job, but only a fool believes it. I guarantee we will still have tedious manual work in 25 years. People have been saying this for years.
I mean do the math... Who buys anything from the robot overlords if we're all jobless? How do states exist without tax revenue? Why would anyone pay money to get a factory full of robots to make something if nobody's going to I buy it? Somebody please answer that last one
Reminded me of a book called Finite and Infinite Games
So that's how you become a galactic civilization!
Well done! Fun and satirical
I feel stupid but I could not bring myself to click the "sign" button and continue gameplay.
A lot of electronic contracts are done like that and... nope, not clicking it... Mmmmm.... nope.
I honestly love the look of the website. It makes me want to play/make a 2d scroller.
Beautiful
Cool stuff hits hard
The real message is that, even if you don't get rich and can't buy that clothing item that is 10x your nest worth, your work can provide for your needs and your family - rent, groceries, helping extended family...
(Worked at a couple of startups, didn't get rich, but had good experiences, paid for family needs, and put aside investments for the future.)
Brilliant
Yep, this is basically the world today. The only difference in the real world:
"What if I told you you can buy that $10 hat today using borrowed money that you don't have, pay $1/year interest for the rest of your life until you pay it back, but you have to earn $2/year more in order to have $1/year more to pay, but to earn $2/year more, your company has to earn $3/year more"
"Oh and you also need to buy insurance for that $10 hat because it's not yours, and you have to pay us for the insurance we're going to buy in addition to the insurance you're going to buy to insure us from you, so that'll be another $1, or you have to make $2 more to have $1, or your company needs to make $3 more, so now your company needs to make $6/year more"
"Oh and we're also going to devalue the $ so you actually need to make $10/year more because a $ won't be worth that much in a couple years"
This is a play on words from this (excellent) NYTimes Opinion piece by Jasmine Sun [1] titled "Silicon Valley is bracing for the permanent underclass"
[1]": https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/opinion/ai-labor-work-for...
(Gift article)
What's interesting is the creator of the site has listed on their linkedin that they're ... wait for it ... a co-founder at some generic AI startup with the goal of using AI agents to automate away manual jobs.